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Hawk-Rod: The "Tune-Up"

First, thank you to all for any advice and suggestions - I'm never afraid to take suggestions! At worst, I already know what is being suggested and it is a reminder. BUT, any suggestions that I don't know can help save me later - so I appreciate all of them!!! :thumbsup:

OK, on to the oil pan. The below picture is measured on my 70 Road Runner with the stock 383, oil pan, K-member, etc. My stock oil pan does have a windage tray and two gaskets installed. The measurement below is taken from the bottom of the oil pan mounting flange (between two bolts) to the K-member. As you can see, there is about 4.75" room to the bottom of the K-Member. This does not equate to overall oil pan depth, as the mounting flange obviously has some thickness, but it does allow me to compare oil pans and how they will fit in my car. My stock pan does not sit below the K-member.
20191201_102434.jpg


As usual, life is all about clearance, and I need as much oil as I can get while not sacrificing ground clearance. According to the Mildon web site, a stock 4 quart oil pan is 5.25" deep. Two key choices are:
(1) A stock hemi style oil pan with 6 quart capacity. Per Milodon, this pan is 5" deep (note 1/4" shallower than the stock pan)
<or>
(2) A Milodon model 31580 with 7 quart capacity. Per Mildon, this pan is 5.5" deep
upload_2019-12-1_11-54-27.png


Has anyone used the Milodon 31580 pan? It seems to indicate it will fit, so this seems to be the best choice (of course it is %$#@*! expensive, but what can you do?)

Any experience or feedback on the Milodon 31580 pan would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Hawk
 
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They are reproducing the 70 style skid plate for the k frame, that 440 and Hemi cars came with. I think Megaparts had them for about $85.00.
 
hsorman said:
Has anyone used the Milodon 31580 pan? It seems to indicate it will fit, so this seems to be the best choice (of course it is %$#@*! expensive, but what can you do?)

Any experience or feedback on the Milodon 31580 pan would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Hawk
Click to expand...

Hawk, yes I've used the Milodon 31580 pan on my Super Bee. It will fit with the stock K-frame. The only concern I have is it DOES extend down an inch or two LOWER than the K-frame, so that could be a road hazard concern if you were to bottom out and hit the pan on something, say a rock or speed bump? Maybe you could fab up a skid plate to weld to the K-frame or buy a ready made one? I've considered doing this but just haven't gotten around to it yet, but then I haven't driven my car much since the rebuild, let alone across country like you're planning.

The other thing with this pan was, I had to modify the oil dipstick and mark it for the proper oil level. Just drilled a series of small holes thru it at each 1 quart increment to show accurate oil levels. But this is a very minor issue and easy to do.

Couple of photos to show you the pan and what you can expect with it. Good luck!

P3150019.JPG


PC160018.JPG


BTW, my engine is also a Low Deck stroker, almost exactly what you're doing with yours. Mine is 499 CID. and a TOTAL torque monster!
 
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Mopars & Missiles said:
Hawk, yes I've used the Milodon 31580 pan on my Super Bee.
Couple of photos to show you the pan and what you can expect with it. Good luck!
Click to expand...
That second picture is the absolute money shot - I couldn't have asked for a better picture than that! Thank you!!!
Oh, and that engine is a thing of beauty! :thumbsup:

I guess I need to understand how much that extra quart is needed. Can I get away a 6 quart oil pan on this engine? Obviously, the 7 quart is better but not if the bottom gets ripped out on a bump while driving!!! I can certainly weld on some kind of skid plate, but now the scope of work is increasing.

I'd appreciate any opinions...

Hawk
 
Just another note since you referenced Hughes Engines. Dave's shop did the machining for my engine and I bought a lot of parts from him including the Milodon pan. One thing he told me was to run ONE LESS quart of oil in the engine than clear full. He wanted to try to lessen the HP losses due to crank windage whipping up the oil, this is even though I used a windage tray on the engine. So, he advised 6 qts instead of the full 7 qts.

Of course this wouldn't make much difference at highway speeds, I think he was more concerned about high RPM situations.
 
hsorman said:
Thanks! We met and partied with some great FBBO members last time, and hope to do the same this time as well. I'll start a post for the trip when the car is ready and around mid-summer next year. It would be fun to meet many FBBO folks if we can!

Hawk
Click to expand...
Put Illinois on your itinerary and we could cruise to Iowa and see @69 GTX!
 
Mopars & Missiles said:
Just another note since you referenced Hughes Engines. Dave's shop did the machining for my engine and I bought a lot of parts from him including the Milodon pan. One thing he told me was to run ONE LESS quart of oil in the engine than clear full. He wanted to try to lessen the HP losses due to crank windage whipping up the oil, this is even though I used a windage tray on the engine. So, he advised 6 qts instead of the full 7 qts.

Of course this wouldn't make much difference at highway speeds, I think he was more concerned about high RPM situations.
Click to expand...

Again, great input! :usflag:

Mine has a windage tray as well, and this seems to imply that even racing, 6 quarts of oil is enough to keep the engine alive. I might put my foot in it here and there ( :D ), but I am not planning on racing it, at least not now. I'd rather sacrifice a few horsepower at high RPM for the security of ground clearance when I am going to put some 11-12 thousand miles on it during a cross country trip.

This engine dyno'd at 550 HP and 610 ft lbs of torque with cast iron heads. With the new RPM heads, I'm thinking the upper 500's for horsepower? This should be enough to get the tires burning even without the bigger pan!!!

I think I am strongly leaning towards the Hemi pan...

As always, I appreciate the input!

Hawk
 
208449-07a34aab8c27c4e4af09f6ac3f7cefd3.jpg


You could always install the Mopar K frame skid plate.
 
Hi Hawk, that is again a nicely written and well documented built thread. Others can just benefit from all this information. While you are working on something serious, I am in progress of building my little airpump. Hope we can meet up soon...both with our classic cars.
Cheers Wolfgang
 
Hawk- just a reminder to keep you on full speed. I’m sure we could get more than a few FBBO bodies to show up at Summit for a meet;there’s more than a few in area. Fingers crossed!
 
Machmeter1 said:
Hi Hawk, that is again a nicely written and well documented built thread. Others can just benefit from all this information. While you are working on something serious, I am in progress of building my little airpump. Hope we can meet up soon...both with our classic cars.
Cheers Wolfgang
Click to expand...
Sounds good Wolgang, and thanks for the positive note. I am no expert, although have been around the hobby awhile. Hopefully people can learn from my thread, both when I do things well as well as when I screw stuff up. That's how we learn!


oldbee said:
Hawk- just a reminder to keep you on full speed. I’m sure we could get more than a few FBBO bodies to show up at Summit for a meet;there’s more than a few in area. Fingers crossed!
Click to expand...
Sounds like a blast. Once we get closer to departure I'll start a new thread to discuss plans and approximate timing.

Oh, and Santa arrived and dropped off my new Milodon Hemi Pan. :D It should fit nicely! I just haven't had much time for the car and engine as I have been getting killed at work and now the holiday rush is upon us. Hopefully I'll get some time this weekend!

Hawk
 
So with Christmas and the holidays, I have had limited time to work on the engine, but I finally got a few things done.

I finally got the a new valley pan painted and the intake manifold installed.

It WAS installed with a head, gasket, valley pan, intake manifold. But it leaked, so I decided to use both gaskets: in other words, head, gasket, valley pan, gasket, intake manifold. I buttered the head and intake manifold sides of the gaskets with light RTV, and then installed.

I would tell you that installing an intake manifold is easy, but getting all these layers to line up and to get the bolts started in the aluminum heads was quite a pain in the arse. But, it went on OK and looks good, so hopefully the intake manifold leak has been addressed:
20200105_154257.jpg


After that, I installed the new Milodon Hemi oil pan and pickup. Again, what should have been easy was some work. The pickup tube interfered with the windage tray, so I had to modify that a bit (sorry, forgot to take pictures of this :poke:). Then I added some RTV to the problem areas, buttered the gaskets on the engine and oil pan sides, and installed the oil pan.
20200111_212200.jpg
20200111_212206.jpg
20200111_215045.jpg


Finally, with the unusually warm weather this past weekend in PA, I figured I better paint the engine. After hours of cleaning the &^%$#! thing, I finally spray bombed it with VHT Hemi orange paint. LOL, this is the kind of painting I can do - the factory style where drips are "proper"!!!
20200112_203221.jpg
20200112_205845.jpg


So now hopefully the engine is ready to go. Time to drop the K member!!!

Hawk
 
It's like Christmas!!!

Lookie what showed up today! Guesses as to what it is??? (Uh, besides a transmission... :poke:)

20200116_123657.jpg
20200116_125257.jpg
 
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